


Revelations Funtimes

by IraDeu



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 03:50:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IraDeu/pseuds/IraDeu
Summary: In which the path-picking goes a slightly... different direction.





	Revelations Funtimes

They are asking you to choose. 

Two of your siblings stand before you, and you do not know who to trust. To your left are the dark ones that raised you, that loved you. To your right sit the bright ones that made you, forged you, home. 

To the left sit the ones that had to fight to see the sun, like a weed growing tall and thin and pale in heavy forest, overshadowed. To the right sit the ones that grew up bathed in light, yet were somehow not strong enough to keep you. 

To the left: all you know. To the right: all you know is right. 

And so on. An infinite amount of dichotomies and justifications. The motivations of both sides made to be fragmentary and meaningless and  _noise._

You do not know these people. 

And this you cannot do. 

* * *

You never remembered your childhood well. It was holes and blurs before the age of ten, to the degree where you have nothing longer than maybe the inkling of a face. You understood, of course, that this was the way most things were, with people. Elise would forget things about when she was three that Xander would tease her for. 

But she remembered  _some_ things. Little affectionate holdovers, little anchors for her identity. Elise was  _always_ this way, they could say. 

You initially accepted Leo's explanations of young memories being in the third person, until your period came at the same time as Camilla's. (Xander teased her about this, too, calling her precocious. Camilla would hit him. Xander would laugh.) 

A family of late bloomers, the servants said. Camilla was three years older than you. 

But they never teased you. 

That was when you began to wonder. 

* * *

They always said you had the devil's luck. This alternately, you learned, meant that you were extremely lucky or extremely unlucky, depending on who you were talking to and what had just happened. 

You learned that you were the sort of person to whom the unthinkable was normal. 

Like the time a butterfly landed on your nose. Or the time your heart stopped after Xander punched you in a sparring match, and you scared the  _hell_ out of Flora. 

Or that time you were nearly whisked out of Castle Krankenburg by someone looking for a ransom, and you were saved by his peanut allergy. 

Or the time that you were successfully stolen out of a castle. 

Your siblings would always complain and whine and beg for attention; the differences between them were not fair. Luck had given them stress and weakness, and they were always desperate for approval, for power, for  _something._

You watched them in their ceaseless bickering. 

And there but for the grace of God- 

* * *

Your power was strong, they said. What they meant: You nearly killed Azura, and you wouldn't be able to stop next time. 

* * *

And you have distanced yourself from the epicenter of the earthquake. 

And the people of Nohr need your help, more than anything. 

And King Garon will destroy all that he touches, including the sun-soaked fields of Hoshido. 

And you do not know. 

* * *

Hoshido took Azura. 

A fair trade, really. Nohr got you, and Hoshido got her. Equal powers, if opposite. 

Would you leave these people and go back to Nohr, you asked, confused and alone in the city capitol, even as you were surrounded by warmth and friendly faces. 

No, she said. 

And that was enough for you. 

* * *

You were shuffled around, as a child. You remember, very vividly, being sent from prison to warden to village to training ground to prison until Xander finally stepped in on your behalf. 

Your memories began at age ten. You first entered the castle a week shy of your twelfth birthday. 

They say that, in an old Nohrian castle, there lives a sheltered princess. 

And yes, you think. Yes, that may be true. 

* * *

You were trained for combat. Whether you were fed was a function of how well you performed. If you did well, you were showered with affection. If you did badly, you hid in the cupboard while the maids feigned ignorance. 

You hate fighting. You have been told that fighting is all you will be good for. You have been shown that fighting is the only way to accomplish anything. 

You hate, and you are so unrooted you have no target but yourself. 

* * *

You befriended one of the young butlers. His name was Jakob, and you fastened onto him in a way you never quite could anyone else. You remember seeing him banging on your doorstep when you were fourteen, looking for a place to stay. 

Sincere. 

He was so, so afraid then. He got into fights daily, it seemed, and he had no idea how to do  _anything._

You saw him packing his bags, one day. Grabbing all of the clothes he could steal and stuffing them into a bag and cursing. Jakob never cursed. He got mean, sure, but cursing was, according to him, the paragon of the unoriginal and desperate. Only a fool could express himself so flagrantly poorly. 

Jakob, you said. 

Yes, lady Corrin? He hid his bag behind his back, almost as a reflex action. 

You breathed. 

Please stay. 

* * *

You screamed when Lillian saved you. 

Why didn't you take me here before, you asked. Back when I needed it? 

And she did not answer.

* * *

When Xander finally tested your strength, you tried not to think about what you were doing and closed your eyes and didn't aim for vital points and held back and ignored your training and still knocked Xander out cold. 

It took them three days: three days where the maids didn't stop trying something,  _anything,_ to wake him up; three days when Camilla and Elise didn't sleep; three days where Leo quietly began to tidy up Xander's possessions and pick out funeral clothes. Three days where Garon was silent. Three days where no-one talked to you. 

When he woke up, his first words were: Thank you. 

* * *

Garon... scared you. 

He did not come to visit often. But, when he did, your siblings would not speak to and the maids grew still and scared and restless, and something about that rubbed off on you. 

Xander, what's wrong? 

I... 

* * *

You are but a pawn in a game you do not understand. 

* * *

You forced Leo to start teaching you when you were thirteen. 

After: Leo: why can't I leave the castle like you can? 

You don't want to know what's out there, Corrin. It's... it's not fun. I...

Leo? 

Leo. 

You didn't answer my question, Leo. 

Leo, you can trust me. 

I... I don't know what's... happened... to us. It's... frightening. 

Leo, if you can teach me, I can help you. 

I do not believe you understand what we go through. 

I don't, Leo, you heard yourself saying. And I don't  _care._

* * *

You and Jakob fell in love, as teenagers do. 

You would fantasize about running away, out of the darkness. Children are not meant to grow up in such places. It makes them grow twisted and wicked and far too strong. 

Your siblings would speak of restoring light to their kingdom, of protecting the future generation from the life they had lived. But you would dangle your body out of the balcony, and you knew Nohr was not your home. 

But until  _someday,_ you tangled between each other in the bedsheets and told each other secrets and dreamed of sunlight. 

You were inseparable. He was everything. Absolutely everything. 

* * *

Hoshido felt too bright to you, and everything felt strange and incomprehensible and  _too much._

Takumi was afraid of you, always watching, accusing, afraid that you would take away more of his family, honor, country, safety. Hinoka idolized you; you were a way for her to prove herself. You, in specific, were not important. Sakura clung to you, but  _wrong,_ replacing Elise in a way that rubbed raw. Ryoma felt so much like Xander it was jarring to speak to him, as if all of Xander's memories had been wiped clean and replaced with something else. You understood Ryoma, even if you did not know him. 

* * *

You were wrong, of course, when you started your studies. Garon is not a force that can be reckoned with. There is no way to defeat a being that does not operate on logic. 

Leo would sit you down in his fifteen-year-old superiority and tell you everything he had seen, and you would nod and gasp at all the right moments as if you felt something. 

You were horrified, even if you didn't quite understand it. You were desensitized, in theory. 

* * *

You tried to run away. To see what it was really like. 

You made it as far as the nearest village. You lasted for about ten minutes, there, before you stepped on a Dragon Vein and Camilla snatched you up before Garon (or, God forbid, Leo) noticed, but you stayed long enough to see the sprawling military and the starving people. There was suddenly a name to put to the tragedy. It was there, now, loud and unignorable and ugly. Almost disgusting. You wanted to turn away. 

You couldn't process it. You felt hollow, clear. As if someone could see right through you. 

Camilla, you asked. 

Yes, love? 

Why? 

Because Daddy is going to bring happiness back to Nohr. 

And there's no other way? 

And there's no other way. 

* * *

Not that Hoshido was much better.

The entire country seemed... skittish. Yes, they had the magic border fence, but it flickered, and their army was weak, and they had so few natural resources that they didn't have a chance of building stronger weapons. 

Which doesn't justify the racism, of course, but it did sort of help explain it. It's more safe to hate something than to fear it. 

Once, a Nohrian soldier got lost on a hunting mission. He killed ten Hoshidan soldiers before they finally caught him. 

When they caught him, they tortured him, just as the Nohrians would one of their soldiers. 

The Hoshidans, of course, were not nice to you. Too much of Nohr had rubbed off on you, they said. You were too brutal, too vicious. All of them were. Not like you could help it. Desperation does that to people, they said. It makes them mean. 

You laughed, the first time you heard this. 

* * *

They took you and Jakob, when you were kidnapped, and you clung together, looking for an exit, taking the edge off the fear. You did not know these people, and, if you did not tell them, they certainly felt it. But you knew him. 

Your siblings, or at least some of them, attacked you with affection, attention, as if they were making up for lost time. They told you that you belonged here, that you were coming home, that you were taking your birthright. 

What birthright, you said. 

And where were you when I was ten. 

* * *

You never really trusted your siblings. 

Elise was... innocent in a way that suggested she did not understand what she was doing. Leo was... pushy. Camilla was... Camilla. 

But you were afraid of Xander. 

* * *

You spent the vast majority of your childhood alone. Your thoughts were loud, rattling like a BB in a tin can, and you would pore over books, draw, throw yourself into practice, anything to soak up your thoughts and make the noise stop. You hated silence, because it brought out that which you could not obtain. 

* * *

And then Jakob died. Killed by a Nohrian soldier because of Hoshidan pressure, forced into a battle that he knew would kill him. 

And you couldn't save him. 

And you couldn't save him. 

And the next time you heard a sword being unsheathed you  _screamed._

* * *

You never touched your sword again. You became an expert in your dragon form, becoming a gentle tyrant. Your scales came with a grace, a gentleness, that your skin did not have. As if this was the way you were meant to be, like you were something terrible and great that could not be contained in mere _humanity_. You were gracious. You were peaceful in your silence. When you were a dragon, the nightmares would stop, and the world would be still. 

Which said nothing of anyone else, of course. 

They fought, and you could not escape, and the world kept spinning, spinning, spinning... 

* * *

Ryoma looks at you. You do not know if you have spoken to him before today; anyway, it does not matter. He does not matter to you. 

You heard the story, from Hinoka, of how sad and terrified they were when you were gone. You have heard how the guards have never forgiven themselves. You have heard how your siblings were broken, their lives defined in their search for you. How their entire world was broken, and how they had to rebuild around the unthinkable. 

You look at them, with their thin brown eyes and their easy tans. You spent hours in front of the mirror, trying to find any sort of similarity, searching for any sign of home. Searching for a belonging that you could not find in the castle that you were told had a place for everyone. 

You wonder if this is what Ryoma is trying to do to you, or maybe what he is trying to get you to do, to feel, to be. He seems warm, friendly, almost, even clad head to toe in steel. 

You see his sword. 

* * *

And then there is Xander. 

He is scrutinizing you. You feel like an experiment, a tool. He is demanding you to tell him if you are going to fail, now. After all of the effort put into raising you. 

You were trained. This is a test. 

* * *

Both of your brothers shall condemn you if you do not aid them. You may be the greatest asset they could have, though for combat prowess or morality bonus points you cannot yet say. 

* * *

You learned one thing from your Hoshidan siblings. 

You left your tent one night to get some water to find Takumi watching, bow drawn and pointed at your door. 

You put your hands up. 

Takumi, are you okay? 

I... yes. Why are you up? (He sounded almost scared - though Takumi was never scared. Takumi was brave. Takumi was strong.) 

I was thirsty, Takumi. 

Really? 

Yes, Takumi. Look, why are you  _doing_ this? Why are you treating me like I'm going to hurt you? 

It's not the sort of problem I'd like to have to face, he said, immediately. I'd rather kill you now, quickly, than have to put in hours of effort to slowly carve you away from my dead siblings. It's efficient. 

...does Hinoka know? 

No, he said. No, and Hinoka be damned. 

You want to kill me. 

Yes. (His voice taut, as if it could break.) 

And now would be the perfect time. 

Yes. 

And yet you don't. 

You stand and and spread your arms and legs and step away. You are harmless. 

And you watch each other for a long, long time. 

* * *

No. 

No, you say. 

And you close your eyes and let the thing inside consume you, and your world starts glowing until it hits bright black. 

* * *

The first time it happened, you were in complete control. This was why you nearly killed Azura. 

Not quite deliberately. Your emotions felt... heightened, as if you were experiencing them fully, unadulterated, for the first time. She was a fool, you thought. A self-serving traitor that served what was safe. As if she had some sort of ulterior motive and was simply waiting for an opening. 

She did not look like the Nohrians, just as you did not look like the Hoshidans. Neither country accepted her. And yet she so easily claimed allegiance to one, as if it was  _that simple,_ even as Takumi tried to force her out, to find some sort of evidence to prove she was a Nohrian plant. Hoshido was moral, she said. Nohr was evil. This was easy. You would come, and she would rule. 

And then she pulled out a sword. 

Azura didn't use swords. 

When she told you to calm down, it was not her arguments that brought you down. 

It was her fear. 

* * *

Neither of your brothers that you do not know has seen you become a dragon. 

When you do this, the entire Nohr troop flinches, while the entire Hoshido troop lurches forward, and you watch them, three times as tall, distant. 

You feel strong, again. You always forget the rush at the beginning, and you are, for just a moment, terrified of falling over on your young deer legs. 

Your brothers do not know what to do. They are afraid, now. They have created something powerful, something they themselves cannot handle. 

And that thing is you. 

You smile. 

Xander's horse is the first to react, bucking back, and Xander is almost powerful enough to control it. Ryoma reaches out to you, as if Xander and he had been locked by some sort of code. 

You pull back and spread your wings. You have no interest in these people. 

* * *

Leo taught you much. 

Geography was your favorite. You loved seeing the veins of the kingdom pulsing beneath you. You felt like looking at a map was like looking in a mirror, and could almost see the cramped stuck feeling of Nohr drip off the page just by seeing the cities and forests and mountains, names running together. It was your freedom. 

You are currently surrounded by mountains on all sides. You know that there are several neutral villages just beyond a mountain to the south. You know that it would be impossible for you to be followed. 

I'm sorry, Leo, you think. 

* * *

The village you arrived at was being attacked by bandits. 

You lingered at the outskirts in your dragon form, distant, unable to connect what you were seeing with anything you knew. Yes, there were swords and starving men and siblings, but you did not understand, and this was exactly how you wanted it. 

You vaguely remember someone raising a sword against you, near the end, as you were watching. 

You also vaguely remember flame, and standing in skin and hair curled over burned grass, and a little girl watching you, eyes wide open, not even crying. 

You only know: the feeling of sky beneath you and stars above. For that is where you shall stay. You have the devil's luck. 

Here, you belong. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> What the fuck was that? I don't know either.  
> Is this intended to be serious? Not... really?  
> Will I write more in this fandom? Maybe?  
> Will this get another chapter? Possibly, depending on how badly this goes over.  
> Have I actually read anything written in this fandom? No. No, and I'm actually really, really sorry.


End file.
